


There's a hole in my soul (can you fill it?)

by shield_maiden



Series: Harringrove [5]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mention of Jancy, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Rough Sex, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 01:33:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12830514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shield_maiden/pseuds/shield_maiden
Summary: Steve’s ashamed of himself. For being so fucked up and empty that this is the only way he can find anything even vaguely resembling calm, the only way he can actually sleep for more than two hours at a time without waking up drenched in a cold sweat. That the only way he can feel even somewhat normal is having Billy Hargrove fuck him like a whore and rough him up.





	There's a hole in my soul (can you fill it?)

**Author's Note:**

> A rewrite of Still Fucked Up (But aren't we all my love?) from Steve's perspective because I will never stop doing perspective flips!!!!
> 
> Title from 'Flaws' by Bastille

Steve genuinely can’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night. 

He nightmares every night. Has done since he first saw the Demogorgon in the Byers living room last winter. 

He had Nancy then, and when he would inevitably wake soaked in sweat with his heart thundering a million miles an hour she was always there to soothe him back to sleep. It didn’t hurt that she had nightmares too. 

Then they break up, and Steve loses his anchor. And Nancy goes from comforting him to comforting Jonathan instead (he wonders if Jonathan dreams of monsters with teeth studded petals instead of a face and wakes up terrified every night.). It’s bitter and acrid in his throat and he wants to hate them but he doesn’t. More than anything he hates himself.

He drifts aimlessly after Nancy makes her choice. And before long the drifting turns into something more like spiralling out of control, and eventually full on free fall. He should be scared of the way hislife is going, he knows, but he isn’t, it’s almost like he’s watching it happen to someone else. 

Or maybe its because he’s always known on some level that he would never be anything but mediocre, and end up working for his dad and hating himself until the day he died. Where as Nancy and Jonathan? They were never mediocre, he doubted they could be mediocre even if they tried.

He’s lost his stability, he doesn’t sleep, he forgets to eat. And he just doesn’t _care_ anymore.

And then there was Billy Hargrove.

It starts (or rather continues because really it never stopped) with Billy just as lewd and aggressive as ever. He verbally baits him on and off the basketball court, and Steve suspects the other teen is just trying to get a rise out of him. All Steve can bring himself to do is sigh and roll his eyes, even as the muscle in Billy’s jaw twitches.

It evolves into a real fight one day, as he shrugs off Billy’s biting comments about his miserable love life (Like he’s not already aware of how fucking sad his life is? Please.) and the other boy finally snaps and takes a swing at him. He punches back reflexively, without a second thought. His mind isn’t really there, struggling to play catch up through the fog of sleep depravation, and letting his body make the choices for him.

He wakes the next day bruised and battered, his cheekbone a stunning riot of purple and blue. He doesn’t feel any particular kind of way about it, but his exhausted mind tells him it’s what he deserves, to be used and punished. To be treated like shit.

They keep fighting, and one day Steve blinks down at his knuckles, torn up and bruised, like he doesn’t recognise how it happened. Some times Billy just starts fighting him the second he sees him, and a year and a half ago, Steve would have been disturbed by it. But now he just doesn’t care, the impact of a fist to the gut is almost grounding, for a moment, and he _needs_ it.

Then it evolves again, like Dart shedding his skin to reveal the next hellish creature, and somehow Steve ends up grinding against the other boy’s muscular thigh as he’s pinned against the wall. Billy’s eyes darken and Steve’s mind races to try and catch up with what is happening.

“Kneel.” Billy commands, his teeth bared in a wicked smirk, finally releasing Steve’s shirt and allowing him to slide down the wall, kicking roughly at his shins until he obeys before getting his dick out and tightly fisting a hand in Steve’s hair. Steve’s eyes water from the sting of where Billy’s hand is clutching at his hair, and he gags as the other boy thrusts into his mouth. Steve knows on some level that he _shouldn’t_ like this, that it shouldn’t be happening. He should say no, get up and walk away. Instead he just swallows when Billy comes in his mouth.

They fuck regularly after that, and its always Billy who calls the shots, Steve a willing but mostly silent participant, even as the other teen gets rougher and rougher.

The thing is, Steve _likes_ it. He likes when Billy stretches him open with his fingers and then fucks him hard, leaving finger print shaped bruises on his hips. He likes it when Billy delivers a litany of hard open handed slaps to his ass and the backs of his thighs. Or when Billy slides his broad hands up, around his neck and squeezes, and things get black and fuzzy around the edges and all Steve can do is gasp and shudder and _feel_. 

In some twisted way he also likes the shame it makes him feel, the way it neatly slots in with all the other horrible ways he feels about himself, about his life. But he’s not ashamed of Billy, or what they do, not exactly. Steve’s ashamed of _himself_. For being so fucked up and empty that this is the only way he can find anything even vaguely resembling calm, the only way he can actually sleep for more than two hours at a time without waking up drenched in a cold sweat. That the only way he can feel even somewhat normal is having Billy Hargrove fuck him like a whore and rough him up. 

Every time, as they part ways Steve feels the shame burning deep in his chest, and it mixes well with the self loathing and depression he already has until it makes a nice little cocktail that kind of makes him wish he had the guts to blow his fucking brains out with his fathers revolver or climb to the summit of that one rickety chair with a rope coiled around his neck and wait for the drop. 

But he’s too broken and apathetic to even do that.

Sometimes he wishes that someone could see how utterly _shattered_ and _empty_ he really is. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel invisible, or compelled to keep up the act for the sake of not freaking anyone out. The shitty part is that it’s not even a good act. He knows that if anyone paid enough attention they would see the cracks, and the way his mask slips and doesn’t quite fit right, gaping around the edges because he doesn’t care enough to try to fix it. And it’s both a relief and frustration that no one does.

Not even Billy, who now has the prestige title of being the person Steve lets closest. 

He tells himself that he’s only let the other teen get closer than arms length because he needs what Billy gives him, that it’s the only thing in Steve’s life that truly relieves the unimaginable pressure he feels, like his mind is trying to tear him apart from the inside out. That all of this is nothing more than sex and fighting, and he only does it to take the edge off, not because he’s desperate for any kind of touch and human contact, even if its rough and hurts so good it makes him want to cry. But he doesn’t _love_ Billy, and Billy doesn’t _love_ him either. They barely like each other.

But suddenly he’s not so sure.

Something in the way Billy looks at him has changed. He can feel it, it makes the hair on the back of his neck stand up and something twists in his gut, pulling at a string tied somewhere in his chest and threatening to destroy his precariously balanced facade of not being a total mess. He ignores it, and it seems like Billy does too, because they keep doing what they’ve always done, they fuck, and Steve goes home and sleeps like the dead for a few hours in blissful peace (and he definitely doesn’t dream of Billy).

He’s been waiting for it all to come crashing down for weeks when it finally does.

He’s just sucked Billy off in the back of the Camaro in the empty school parking lot. Billy’s hand is still tangled in his hair, but unlike the first time, theres no biting sting from the other boy pulling. He’s just holding gently and it makes Steve’s pulse climb as he swipes at his mouth with the back of his hand, looking anywhere but at Billy. 

And then Billy’s fingers are trailing feather soft over his cheek bone, and Steve’s heart leaps into his throat at the tenderness of the touch. _What the fuck is he doing?_ He flicks his gaze to Billy’s, and he’s wholly unprepared for the softness he finds there and it unlocks something inside him. He feels his eyes well up with tears, hot and shameful but he can’t help it, it’s like a dam breaking and finally overflowing and he knows he couldn’t stop the sobs if he tried.

Steve looks up when Billy withdraws his hand and tucks himself back into his jeans and Steve feels a wave of panic crash over him at the thought of him leaving. His shaking hands darting out to clutch at Billy’s knees, he opens his mouth to speak, to _beg_ him to stay. But before he can force the words out, the blonde is threading their fingers together with a reassuring squeeze as he shifts over on the seat, indicating that Steve should sit in the now empty space and helping him off the floor.

Steve can’t seem to stop himself from what he does next, as he presses himself into Billy’s side. It’s like he’s been starving and Billy’s touch is the first edible thing he’s seen in days. It’s awkward for a moment, like Billy doesn’t know what to do, but he eventually brings his hand up to rub slow circles on Steve’s back. 

Steve can’t help but sigh, this is the most grounded he’s felt in months.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out with me on tumblr @crimson--petrichor & send me prompts! I also love comments and constructive criticism and kudos so please don't be shy!


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